A Manatee County quit claim deed transfers whatever interest you hold in a piece of real estate to someone else without any warranty that the title is clean. To make the transfer stick, you draft a deed that satisfies Florida’s formatting and content rules, sign it in front of two witnesses and a notary, and record it with the Manatee County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller along with the recording fee and documentary stamp tax.
What To Gather Before You Draft
The Manatee County Clerk does not publish a quit claim deed form. The Clerk’s forms library covers court filings and similar documents, not deed templates, so you will need to buy a blank form, download one from a legal forms service, or have an attorney draft it. Whichever route you take, the finished document has to satisfy Florida’s recording statute or the Clerk will reject it.
Pull these items before you fill in anything:
- Your most recent recorded deed. It contains the legal description you must copy verbatim and shows exactly how the grantor’s name appears in the county records.
- The parcel identification number, available through the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s search tool at manateepao.gov.
- Full legal names and mailing addresses for every grantor and every grantee.
- The name and mailing address of whoever prepared the deed. Florida requires this on the document itself; if you drafted it, your name goes in the preparer block.
- A consideration amount. Even a gift deed usually recites nominal consideration such as “$10 and other good and valuable consideration.” This figure drives the documentary stamp tax.
Florida’s Formatting Rules
The deed itself is short, but the recording statute is picky. Every person who signs — grantor, witnesses, and notary — must have their name legibly printed, typed, or stamped directly beneath the signature line. The grantor’s and grantee’s mailing addresses must appear on the document. Missing any of these details gives the Clerk grounds to reject the filing.
Leave a blank three-inch by three-inch space in the upper right corner of the first page and a one-inch by three-inch space in the upper right corner of each additional page. The Clerk uses those spaces for the official recording stamp. If text or margins crowd in, the document comes back unrecorded.
Copy the legal description verbatim from your current recorded deed, whether it uses metes and bounds, lot and block, or a combination. A misplaced word or transposed lot number can cloud the title. Double-check the parcel ID against the Property Appraiser’s records; a mismatch between the legal description and the parcel ID is one of the fastest ways to create a title problem later.
Signing, Witnesses, and Notary
Florida Statute 689.01 requires the grantor to sign the deed in front of two subscribing witnesses, who also sign the document. The witnesses do not have to be disinterested, but they cannot be the grantee.
Notarization is a separate requirement. Section 689.01 does not mention a notary, but Section 695.26 effectively requires one by demanding a notary’s printed name beneath their signature before the Clerk can record the document. Because an unrecorded quit claim deed offers almost no practical protection to the grantee, treat notarization as mandatory. A notary public can serve as one of the two required witnesses, so you only need to find one additional person for the signing.
The notary’s acknowledgment block must show the date of the notarial act, the name of the person being notarized, and the type of identification used, either personal knowledge or a specific ID such as a driver’s license or passport.
Remote Online Notarization
If the grantor cannot appear in person, Florida authorizes remote online notarization under Section 117.265. The notary must be physically in Florida, but the signer and witnesses can be anywhere. The session uses a live audio-video connection, and the signer passes identity proofing through knowledge-based authentication from public records in addition to showing a government-issued photo ID on camera. The notary records the entire session and retains it for ten years. Witnesses can participate through the same platform rather than sitting with the signer.
Recording the Deed
Once the deed is signed, witnessed, and notarized, you submit it to the Manatee County Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller. Recording creates the public record of the ownership change; without it, future buyers and title searchers have no notice of the transfer.
You have three options:
- In person at the Recording Department, 1115 Manatee Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
- By mail to Attn: Recording, P.O. Box 25400, Bradenton, FL 34206. For overnight delivery, use the Manatee Avenue address.
- Electronically through one of the Clerk’s approved e-recording vendors: CSC, EPN, File & Go, or Simplifile. Set up an account with the vendor directly.
After recording, staff scan the deed into the official records and return the original to the mailing address shown on the document.
Recording Fees and Documentary Stamp Tax
The Clerk charges $10.00 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page. A one-page deed costs $10.00; a two-page deed runs $18.50. Fees must accompany the deed at submission.
Nearly every deed that transfers an interest in Florida real property triggers the documentary stamp tax. In Manatee County, the rate is $0.70 per $100 of consideration, rounded up to the next $100 increment. “Consideration” includes cash paid and any mortgage, lien, or other encumbrance on the property, whether the grantee assumes it or not.
This is where gift transfers trip people up. If the property has no mortgage and the deed recites only nominal consideration such as “$10 and other good and valuable consideration” or “for love and affection and $1,” the minimum documentary stamp tax is $0.70. But if the property carries a $200,000 mortgage at the time of transfer, the full mortgage balance counts as consideration. The tax works out to $1,400 ($200,000 ÷ $100 × $0.70) even though no cash changes hands.
Homestead and the Save Our Homes Cap
If the property has a Florida homestead exemption, a quit claim transfer can trigger a full reassessment and wipe out years of savings under the Save Our Homes cap. That cap limits annual increases in assessed value to 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. On a long-homesteaded property in a rising market, the gap between the capped assessed value and actual market value can be enormous.
Florida Statute 193.155 resets the assessed value to full market value as of January 1 after a change of ownership. Not every transfer counts, though. The statute carves out exceptions for:
- Transfers between spouses, including those resulting from a divorce.
- Transfers where the same person keeps the homestead exemption, such as adding a spouse to the title while the original homeowner stays on it and keeps claiming the exemption.
- Transfers on death to a surviving spouse or minor children under Florida’s homestead descent rules.
- Deeds that correct an error in the existing title.
If your transfer does not fit one of these exceptions, the new owner will see the property reassessed at market value, and the tax bill can jump by thousands of dollars a year. Check with the Manatee County Property Appraiser’s office before recording if you have any doubt about how the transfer will be treated.
Your Mortgage Does Not Go With the Deed
A quit claim deed transfers your ownership interest. It does nothing to your mortgage. If you are the borrower and you quit claim the property to someone else, you remain personally liable for the loan. The grantee gets the property; you keep the debt. This surprises people more than almost anything else about quit claim deeds, and it is the single biggest reason to think twice before using one on a mortgaged property.
Most residential mortgages also contain a due-on-sale clause that lets the lender demand full repayment if the property changes hands. The federal Garn-St. Germain Act limits enforcement on residential property with fewer than five units. A lender cannot accelerate the loan for:
- Transfers to a spouse or children, including those resulting from a divorce decree or separation agreement.
- Transfers into a living trust, as long as the borrower remains a beneficiary and keeps occupancy rights.
- Transfers on the borrower’s death to a surviving joint tenant, spouse, or relative.
If your transfer falls outside those categories, say a quit claim to a sibling or an unrelated friend, the lender can call the entire loan balance due. Even for protected transfers, letting your lender know in advance avoids confusion when the name on the property records stops matching the name on the mortgage.
Federal Gift Tax Reporting
Transferring property for less than its fair market value is a gift for federal tax purposes. The annual gift tax exclusion for 2026 is $19,000 per recipient. Most real estate is worth well more than that, so a quit claim deed on a home will almost certainly require the grantor to file IRS Form 709 by April 15 of the year after the transfer.
Filing Form 709 does not necessarily mean you owe tax. The lifetime basic exclusion amount for 2026 is $15,000,000, and each dollar above the annual exclusion simply reduces that lifetime allowance. The form asks for the donor’s adjusted basis in the property, which is what you originally paid, plus improvements, minus depreciation, because that basis carries over to the grantee. Unlike inherited property, which gets a stepped-up basis equal to fair market value at the date of death, gifted property keeps the original owner’s lower basis. When the grantee eventually sells, taxable gain is calculated from your original cost, not from the property’s value on the day you gave it away. For highly appreciated property, that difference can mean a much larger capital gains bill later.